Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2012 R2 is Now Available #SysCtr #SystemCenter #VMM

Hello folks,

I am glad to share with you that Microsoft just released the Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2012 R2.

Please find the description of the components that are updated in System Center 2012 R2 UR6 and the new features that are added for Virtual Machine Manager particularly:

Virtual Machine Manager (KB3050317):

- Add Azure Subscription feature: By using the Add Azure Subscription feature in Update Rollup 6, administrators of Virtual Machine Manager can add Microsoft Azure subscriptions to VMM and perform basic actions on Azure instances in those subscriptions. The feature is included in Virtual Machine Manager in Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2012 R2. For each Azure subscription that you add, you can use a console to see all role instances in all deployment groups in that subscription.
  What you can do with this feature
  If you already manage your on-premises virtual machines in Virtual Machine Manager, you can use this feature to perform some very basic actions on Azure instances without leaving the VMM console. For example, you can do the following:
  - Add or remove one or more Azure subscriptions by using the VMM console.
  - See a list view of details and statuses of all role instances in all deployments in that subscription.
  - Manually update the list of instances.
  - Perform the following basic actions on the instances:
    - Start
    - Stop
    - Shutdown
    - Restart
    - Connect through RDP
  For more information, see Adding an Azure subscription in VMM in System Center 2012 R2 with Update Rollup 6.
- Improved E2A ASR protection scenario: By having Update Rollup 6 in your Virtual Machine Manager environment, it’s easier to discover and correct an issue that sometimes occurs when you configure Azure Site Recovery (ASR) protection. This issue occurs when you want to add ASR protection for on-premises virtual machines, and you have the following virtual machine properties:
  - No specified operating system version
  - No indication of which disk contains the operating system for the virtual machine
  These properties must be specified because they are required by Azure Site Recovery. In Update Rollup 6, a clearer set of error messages are displayed in VMM in the Jobs pane if you try to configure a virtual machine that does not meet the requirements.
  For information about ASR requirements, see Prerequisites and support in the Azure Site Recovery Planning Guide.
- Option to use Generation 2 VMs in Services and VMRoles: In Update Rollup 6, VMM now provides support for Generation 2 virtual machines for services and VM Roles. By using this feature, you can deploy multi-tier services and choose the virtual machine generation for individual tiers. Users can service these service instances through conventional and image-based servicing.
  For more information, see Understanding Generation 1 and Generation 2 Virtual Machines in VMM.
- Total Networking Usage Exposure rules in Management Pack: This change introduces two rules that target Hyper-V Hosts:
  - Total Incoming VNic Network traffic collection rule
  - Total Outgoing VNic Network traffic collection rule
  These rules measure the total incoming and total outgoing traffic in Kilo Bytes per VNic per virtual machine in the following method:
  For each VM:
  1. Enable Hyper-V Metering if it is not enabled.
  2. Run Measure-VM.
  3. Collect metering data for every remote address of “0.0.0.0/0” or “::/0” per VNic.
  By default, these rules run every hour. Users may opt to override this setting by overriding the IntervalSeconds property. These rules should not be run more frequently than every five minutes (300 seconds).
  Behavior in previous versions: VMM did not measure data consumption. It measured only throughput.
- Option to overcommit Cloud and Host Group capacity for Replica VMs: System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager lets you put your replica virtual machines on a preconfigured cloud or host group if they fit within your capacity settings. Until now, VMM assumed that all the resources that were allocated to replica VMs were in use. Therefore, VMM did not allow you to put any replica VM on a cloud or host group if that would raise the aggregate load of all the replica VMs beyond the cloud or host group capacity.Although this behavior made sure that all the replica VMs could simultaneously start, it could cause a non-optimal use of replica clouds and host groups. This would occur if you (an Enterprise or Hoster) tried to put additional VMs within a cloud or a host group. That is, if you overcommited the replica cloud or host group. In Update Rollup 6, you can overcommit clouds and host groups in your VMM environment by configuring the following registry key on the VMM Server:Registry location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server\Settings\Placement
- DWORD name: IgnoreMemoryForStoppedReplicaVM
  DWORD value: 1Note If the Placement subkey does not exist, create it

See the following Knowledge Base article for details about these fixes and installation instructions:
3050317 Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager.

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